when given the opportunity, preach Christ crucified.
Thursday, June 19th, 2008I haven’t written for various reasons, but I am compelled to post a paper I wrote for my Psychology and the Religious Experience class I finish tomorrow. I was asked to take a psychologist in history and juxtapose that to a “spiritual practice.” Viktor Frankl is the psychologist whose work I used. He was a Jew, but he spoke many Christian biblical truths that are merely muddled in psychology’s jargon. My heart was moved to write about sanctification. There are several reasons for this, one of them being this is the sermon series we are going through at Redemption Hill. We were given various examples of spiritual practices and its funny but, truly, applying the gospel to your life is a spiritual practice (although I’m almost positive most people don’t see it that way). Its CENTRAL.
I do not apologize for the length, bear with me. :]
(slightly edited:)
(pps: I think what gives my heart the most joy about this paper is that I was able to dedicate the first page to explaining the gospel)
To me personally, an implication of the gospel is that the history of humankind which God put into motion is redemptive. Humankind chose to reject God’s will for their lives, and because of this decision now live separated from God. God, who is both merciful and just, sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross. It is through belief in Christ that we are made right with God, and nothing more. Redemption and the processes of right action should never be based in self-righteousness. This means that as Christians we should never aim to do right action to be seen as righteous in God’s eyes. Christ has forever put us in right standing with the Father, and to go back to a mode of righteousness based on our own merit is a shallow understanding of what it means for Christ to have died for our sins- once and for all. Redemption is not a static event. The gospel should permeate all aspects of a Christian’s life. This redemption should be seen in the life long process of transformation.
Frankl’s use of the phenomenological method allows for a Christian understanding of a meaningful life with the existence of God and His intentions for our lives. Frankl goes on to say that “of central importance is no longer what originates and operates behind our back within the mind but what has an authority and integrity of its own beyond the mind” (Fuller 226). I would argue that this authority beyond the mind is God who has demanded much from our lives, but recognizes that we have failed.
Frankl describes the three major concepts encompassing his theory as: freedom of the will, the will to meaning, and the meaningfulness of life. Freedom of the Will is the understanding that despite a person’s circumstances, they are ultimately in charge of their own right action. Frankl believes that conditions are not causes (227). Much like the concept of Freedom of the Will, the process of transformation involves a Christian’s understanding that you cannot blame your right or wrong action on your circumstances (or “heat”) you find yourself in. In the article “How Christ Changes Us by His Grace” by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp, Jeremiah 17:5-10 acts as a model of revealing the process of transformation.1 Heat is said to describe “a person’s current situation with all of its difficulties, temptations, and blessings” (Lane and Tripp 18). If we are made right with God through Christ what is the purpose of right action? In a letter to the Romans Paul wrote, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!”2 Similarly, Frankl writes about the Freedom of the Will saying “freedom is taken by some to mean freedom to do as they please…but freedom without responsibleness [is] arbitrariness” (Fuller 228). Freedom from the Christian perspective is seen as freedom from sin. Again, Paul wrote “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”3 If our “life task is grounded in intentional self-transcendence” as Frankl would argue, why do we continue to ensnare ourselves in sin? I would argue this is because of our limited understanding of the gospel.
The Will to Meaning lies outward (228). According to Frankl, right action only takes place when we have come to actualize “value-potentialities” (228). Frankl goes on to say that human beings are motivated “to actualize as many positive values as circumstances allow” (229). These values are what give us meaning to life. Under this theory, a Christian’s need for sanctification would be to understand and actualize in as many areas of their life the importance of right action with regards to their faith in Christ. To a Christian, the values that give us meaning to life should be centered on those which Christ exhibited. I would argue that a great example of values Christians should strive to grasp is contained in the fruit of the Spirit.4
Despite the actualization of some value-potentialities, Christians are faced with what is and what ought to be (229). Most Christians that can be seen throughout history, media outlets, and their own literature are poor examples of what Christ required/requires of them. Martin Luther, for example, in his main work On The Jews and Their Lies clearly did not grasp the value of gentleness, patience, or love. Instead of speaking the truth in love, Luther trusted in himself to be the savior of the Jews.5 It is obvious here that Luther lost sight of the reality of his need for humility, because even his own righteousness rests in something Christ had done for him- a thing he himself cannot take credit for. Luther is an unmistakable example of what is instead of what ought to be.
Frankl says that there is a “tension between human existence as a will to meaning and meaning fulfillment, between what is and what ought to be… the real and the ideal- human being” (229). For a Christian, this tension should have us express dissatisfaction (Lane and Tripp 16). The equivalent of what Frankl deems “what is and what ought to be” is, for the Christian, explained as joyful discontentment (20). This discontentment should be in the areas we have yet to grasp the value-potentialities of. Our joyfulness should come because of “the many things in our lives that would not be there without His grace” (Tripp, 20). At the same time “the life of self-examination and joyful discontent should not be confused with a life of paralyzing self-condemnation” (20). Frankl gives a very biblical perspective to failure and guilt by saying that “it is the recognition of the fact that we have missed the mark and gone astray that makes us want to do better” (Fuller 232). How fitting that sin literally means “missing the mark.” Instead of self-condemnation the Christian should find a balance between recognizing where they’ve sinned and proceed to repent, always relying on the grace of Christ to transform them. Despite our new found lives in Christ, “we always have the freedom to accept or refuse the value we are invited to actualize in a given situation” (229). We always have the ability to choose to sin instead of choosing right action.
Frankl’s phenomenological view allows for the perspective that our actions ultimately lie beyond ourselves. Frankl argues exactly what Christians would argue, that “we are not responsible to ourselves alone…responsibleness instead depends on a being higher than ourselves for the validity of the demands made upon our lives” (241). So, with this in mind, it would be accurate to say that the demands made upon a Christian’s life depends directly on a being higher than itself (i.e.: God). Additionally, the demands made for our lives lie in the commands within the Old and New Testament. In order to seek validity within our faith we must be responsible to God and the life He’s given us. The religion of Christianity should not just be a set of rules and regulations we must follow to enter eternal paradise (obviously there are various wrongful motivations in this statement). Instead, a Christian’s conversion is described as entering into a marriage with Christ. This marriage describes just how intimate and personal God becomes with us, it describes commitment and longstanding devotion. Frankl’s view that our responsibleness is not a means to an end but a means to a “superpersonal agent” should ultimately be a call for all Christians to strive for sanctification through the grace of Christ.
Overall, Frankl would argue that the belief in Jesus is a way to bring meaning to a person’s life. For Christians this meaning to life is surrounded by Christ’s crucifixion on the cross. Frankl sees that in all humanity there is this understanding of what is and what ought to be. That people understand where they fail, and the way in which they wish to be. With this concept, it would be easy to understand why within Christianity there is a struggle between what is and what ought to be. If Christians are considered new creations, why are they constantly missing the various meanings of fulfillment? This is the process of sanctification, and it involves much of what Frankl describes as, “a call, first to listen, and then to respond” (228). What Frankl considers self-actualization, I consider sanctification. Frankl believes that “self actualization is thus seen as the by-product of a certain style of acting, the unintended concomitant of a life dedicated to meaning fulfillment” (228). If this “meaning fulfillment” is a person’s dedication to Christ, then we say that sanctification is the process by which right action occurs because of a life dedicated to Jesus. Again, we can change the term self actualize to sanctified when Frankl wrote, “one becomes self-actualized [sanctified]…not by seeking to actualize [sanctify] oneself, but by forgetting about oneself and directing oneself outward toward value [Jesus]. For Christian this ultimate value should be Jesus Christ.
1 Jeremiah 17:5-10: This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives. “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it? ”I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve.”
2 Corinthians 5:17: “therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
3 Galatians 5:1: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
4 Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control.”
5 Ephesians 4:15: “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”
Works Cited Fuller, Andrew R. Psychology and Religion. 4th ed. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, 2008. 225-247. Lane, Timothy S., and Paul D. Tripp. “How Christ Changes Us by His Grace.” The Journal of Biblical Counciling (2005): 15-21.